Ivory Coast International Cheick Tiote seems to be an ambitious player at Newcastle. Cheick Tiote in action in the African Cup of Nations earlier this year And the 25 year-old has come out today and talked about Newcastle possibly qualifying for the Champions League. This is what the 29 times capped player had to say about Newcastle qualifying for Europe [.

Hello and welcome to Tuesday.

Encouraging news re: Fabrice Muamba last night. Obviously there's still a long way to go for him but fingers crossed he can continue to make progress. All credit must go to those healthcare professionals who have done so much for him, and continue to do so.

I do wonder if this incident will have any long-lasting impact on the game, perhaps in terms of closer screening of players.

Team of the Week

African team of the week

Selection of a goalkeeper was pretty easy this week. Ivory Coast international keeper Boubacar Barry not only kept a clean sheet against Westerlo but he also scored a 63rd minute penalty to help his side Lokeren win four goals to nil.

Right then, stupid pointless, irritating internationals are out of the way, now we can get back to the real thing.

So far there have been no reports of maimings, snappings, twistings or any other ings which might prove damaging to an Arsenal player's chances of playing on Saturday. Robin van Persie played 45 minutes against England, Bert van Marwijk saying that he'd spoken with the skipper and because he'd had a bit of a groin problem he agreed to only play him for a half.

Only having two points lead with 13 games left in the league, Manchester City's manger, Roberto Mancini urged his players to treat every remaining matches like a Champions League final as the Italian tactician isn't expecting any complacent in the remaining fixtures.

Acknowledging the tightness of their race against Manchester United, Mancini obviously wanted his players to keep their focus on high level as one slip up may cost the the title.

A storm is brewing over Manchester based clubs United and City after United player Wayne Rooney laughed at City's Ivorian duo Kolo and Yaya Toure after existing the AFCON tournament in dramatic fashion against the less fancied Zambia more than a week ago

Rooney who made the remarks on twitter, was earlier thought to be supporting The Elephants and showed solidarity with them when Drogba missed their second half penalty by tweeting:

'Wow just seen drogbas pen.

Arsenal's massive 7-1 victory was highlighted with another special performance from Robin Van Persie, who bagged a hat-trick on the night, but it was youngster, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

The youngsters scored two goals on the match and once again provides an important contribution for his club, leaving his manager, Arsene Wenger in awe with Oxlade-Chamberlain speedy development.

Saturday, January 28

England FA Cup, Liverpool-Manchester United (7:30amET FSC): The most heated of English rivalries?

African Cup, Ghana-Mali (2pmET Al Jazeera Sports USA)

Italy, Juventus-Udinese (2:30pmET FSC, ESPN3.

Arsenal's manager, Arsene Wenger, remains confident in his believes that splashing more money on the winter market isn't the best solution for his team, despite admitting that the current injury crisis are the reasons for their poor results in the last three league matches.

Speaking after his team's 2-1 defeat against Manchester United, Wenger stated that the results won't pushed him to commit in the market as he preferred to wait for the injured ones returning to action again.

Mario Balotelli never seems to stop making the headline as despite being Manchester City savior in previous match against Tottenham Hotspurs, Balotelli caught himself involved in another case on that game.

The Italian striker was caught stamping Spurs' midfielder, Scott Parker, on Sunday and now are facing a disciplinary act by the English FA, who already confirmed their stance, only waiting for the forward to respons.

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Despite already making a move in the January market by grabbing Thierry Henry on loan until February, Arsenal's manager, Arsene Wenger, still doesn't really show much enthusiasm about this winter transfer window.

In his thought, this month isn't really the perfect time to acquire players especially since the ones available are usually those who are looking for a way out from their club and didn't really have much playing time.

Manchester City's coach, Roberto Mancini, reveals that they might try to snatch an additional midfielder in the January transfer window, but it will only happen once they managed to offload some of their current unused players, including Carlos Tevez.

Mancini reveals that there are around three to four players that his club planned to offload this winter and the manager is very hopeful that everything would happen just as planned.

In form Tottenham Hotspurs striker, Emmanuel Adebayor, who arrived in a loan deal from Manchester City apparently believes that his team might find a patch to catch up with City this January, mainly because of the African Nations Cup.

Adebayor is confident that the departure of Yaya Toure along with Kolo Toure to defend their respective country, Ivory Coast, in the upcoming competition set to be held at Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

Injury problems and also the upcoming African Cup most likely will force Arsene Wenger make some activity in the January transfer market especially in covering the full back and striker positions.

Arsenal are set to lose Gervinho along with Marouane Chamakh for the African Cup, while their main full backs such as Bacary Sagna, Kieran Gibbs, Andre Santos and Carl Jenkinson are all injured.

The Daily Mail is reporting this morning that Chelsea are willing to take as £30m loss on misfiring striker Fernando Torres.

According to Neil Ashton at the Daily Mail, Chelsea have considered sending Torres out on loan to rebuild his confidence, after scoring only three Premier League goals for Chelsea this year.

The Daily Mail is reporting this morning that Chelsea are willing to take as £30m loss on misfiring striker Fernando Torres.

According to Neil Ashton at the Daily Mail, Chelsea have considered sending Torres out on loan to rebuild his confidence, after scoring only three Premier League goals for Chelsea this year.

Finding difficulties in getting into Arsenal's first team line up apparently has frustrated Marouane Chamakh, who hinted at a potential departure from Emirates after the season ends.

The Moroccan international insisted that considering his age, getting regular playing is pretty much what he needed and should nothing changes by next summer, Chamakh will be considering his options.

Featuring Inter Milan midfielder McDonald Mariga, the Kenya national football team is currently ranked 133rd in the world and 36th in Africa by FIFA. Nicknamed the Harambee Stars, the team has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup but has made five first round appearances in the African Cup of Nations.

Ahead of the big match against Chelsea on Monday evening, Manchester City's tactician, Roberto Mancini, revealed that aside from focusing heavily in the upcoming difficult matches against the Blues and Arsenal, the Italian tactician is also set his sight on surviving the January fixtures.

Mancini revealed that, the early part of next year could be the most important month that will determine their title chance this season.

It seems that Mobido Maiga is very likely to join Newcastle United in January. Mobido Maiga dream move to Newcastle for all players The local press has said the fee for the Mali striker is around £6M and the deal is likely to take place in early January although Mobido will be leaving for the African Cup of [.

Last week when Chivaz defeated Barcelona 4-1, Fabian got all the spotlights scoring two great goals especially the one with the great bicycle kick.
What is amazing now, and welcome to the world of the new internet media, here is the goal with non official cameras : )
and here is a one with even a better angle
one more camera :)
Then, here is another incredible (half) bicycle kick from one of the most under-rated Saudi players ever, Khalid Mosad.

African club football gets very little coverage in Europe so I thought it would be interesting to delve into this little known world for another blogpost.

On Saturday the East African club cup begins in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Twelve clubs from ten African nations compete for the coveted trophy.

As protests ended in Egypt today, and Egypt went into a very new phase in history, I hope everything will be very positive in future, this is a gift with a video with a song and nice celebrations in Egypt when they won the African Cup for the third consecutive time